Disaster Aid

ISSUE: FEMA refuses to pay to restock New Orleans aquarium with fresh-caught fish.

November 18, 2007

Maybe the Federal Emergency Management Agency likes to lavish more taxpayer money than necessary on a particular need. Or maybe the agency is loath to give up its renowned affinity for bureaucratic red tape.

Whatever its reasons, FEMA's refusal to pay to restock a New Orleans aquarium damaged by Hurricane Katrina makes no financial or public policy sense. Instead, all it does is underscore ongoing questions about whether the agency truly works in the public's best interests.

It's not that FEMA disagrees the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas deserves federal relief money to replace thousands of fish lost in a power outage after the storm. In fact, it was willing to spend more than $600,000 on the effort.

But it won't pay the bargain-basement price of $99,766 that the restocking ended up costing, because FEMA is quibbling with how the fish were caught.

The federal Stafford Act, the post-Katrina disaster-aid law long criticized as ineffective in meeting recovery needs, requires that the fish be purchased from reputable commercial sources. Because the act specifies that facilities not be improved beyond their pre-storm conditions, that meant the aquarium would have to find fish of the approximate age and size of those that were lost - a mandate state experts called nearly impossible in today's marketplace, according to The Associated Press.

Instead, to save money and precious time, aquarium staffers improvised and went fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving themselves for the marine life, charging for far less than the hours they put in and returning with an impressive load of replacement fish at a clear savings to the taxpayer. Instead of thanks, they're being punished for their ingenuity.

There's something to be said for following the rules, and FEMA would be the first make that argument. But when the rules make no sense and cost far more than necessary, the federal government has the duty to be reasonable and flexible. That it won't in this case says more about FEMA than the request at hand.

BOTTOM LINE: It's in the public's interests for the agency to be more flexible in such requests.